Chea 1
Phanghouy Chea
Catherine Chapman
EAP 090
May 17, 2018
Explain Why People Tend to Follow Masculine or Feminine Ways?
Do you think it is important to follow gender rules? Many people comply to the coercive
rules on how they behave differently in human activities. They think it is necessary to follow
those rules that depend on their real gender in order to adapt to society. It means males must
behave in masculine ways, and women must behave in feminine ways. While most people
comply to those gender rules, many people think it is better to expunge those rules from their
lives.
Proponents of the opposite point of view think that following gender rules are good to
encourage people’ behavior, and people tend to follow them respectfully. “Because gender roles
have always existed in human society and because they were never invented or designed, we
cannot apply the usual intuition that primary effects should be obvious” (Givens). Most people
agree with the author’s opinion because the roles are inherent to people which is difficult to
break. Because of this, many people believe men should behave in masculine ways. Masculine
ways can make men become more powerful and be responsible for their activities. As the old
generation believed, men can’t act like girls because it would make them weak; therefore, they
have to be strong and protect their families. They believe men should have more education and
develop themselves to be successful. For example, my grandfather followed all those rules
because he wanted to be a good husband and a good father for his family. He said he had to
study, and he had to work in the government even though he didn’t like his job. It was a secure
Chea 2
job that could earn the money for his whole family and protect them from bad people. He also
gave his children a lot of advice and encouraged them to comply with those rules if they wanted
to have eminent lives. Furthermore, the older generation believe we need to follow all those rules
in order to have good behavior and be the same as other people in society. Women should act in
feminine ways which being really polite, having soft voices, and doing the housework. Many
people believe that all those things can protect their family’s reputation and help them to find
their bright future. All of those rules help men and women become good people by knowing their
individual jobs and also preventing them from going wrong ways from societal needs. Without
gender rules, they believe people would participate in bad activities because of their own
mindsets. People believe those are the advantages to following all of those rules in order to look
good in our society.
